On 1/11/11, Travis <
baconlard@gmail.com> wrote:
> His sexuality and his ethnicity matter almost as much as his shoe size. And
> you are a damn fool if you think otherwise.
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Tommy News <
tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Giffords shooting's gay, Hispanic hero
>> Daniel Hernandez helped save the congresswoman's life -- and yes, his
>> sexuality and ethnicity matter
>>
>> The Giffords shooting's gay, Hispanic hero
>> Daniel Hernandez helped save the congresswoman's life -- and yes, his
>> sexuality and ethnicity matter
>> By Mary Elizabeth Williams
>>
>> AP
>> Daniel Hernandez, an intern with U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,
>> D-Ariz., walks across the lawn outside University Hospital Sunday,
>> Jan. 9, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz.It didn't take long after 20-year-old
>> political intern Daniel Hernandez emerged as the hero of Saturday's
>> mass shooting in Arizona for the cynics to figure out the angle. As a
>> poster on Free Republic remarked, "Look shortly for the leftist media
>> to push the 'Gay, Hispanic-American Intern saving the Liberal
>> Congresswoman's life from the Tea Party' angle." Well, Freepers, here
>> it is!
>>
>> It's not quite that simple, of course. However we try to understand
>> the causes of the tragedy in Arizona and the political rhetoric of
>> violence, it seems clear that there's considerably more to the
>> disturbing story of shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner than can be
>> explained by pointing to a few wry Sarah Palin quips. And if simply
>> being gay and Latino were grounds for heroism, Ricky Martin's face
>> would be on the $10 bill.
>>
>> Daniel Hernandez is, by any measure, an extraordinary young man. He
>> had been interning in Gabrielle Giffords' office only five days when
>> an event at a local Safeway thrust him into the international
>> spotlight for his quick thinking, bravery and competence in the wake
>> of unimaginable violence. On the "Today" show Monday, Matt Lauer
>> explained how Hernandez drew upon his high school training as a
>> certified nursing assistant to check on the pulses of other shooting
>> victims before noticing the severity of Giffords' wounds and, as he
>> puts it, prioritizing her. He put her upright and held her in his lap
>> as he applied pressure to staunch the blood. "I could tell she had a
>> severe gunshot," he said. "I just tried to do my best until emergency
>> medical services could arrive. My focus was on making sure I was doing
>> everything I could to take care of her." Even when the ambulance
>> arrived, he stayed with her, because "I saw my job then as not taking
>> care of her medical needs but taking care of her emotional needs. I
>> tried to comfort her and make sure she knew she wasn't alone. I let
>> her know I was going to try to contact her parents and her husband."
>>
>> In the two days since the shooting, Hernandez has emerged in
>> interviews as a graceful presence with a no doubt promising future,
>> with considerably much more going for him than his status as a
>> minority. So why should the sexual orientation of this eminently
>> competent, compassionate person keep coming up in this tale? Why is
>> his ethnicity, and the fact that he grew up speaking Spanish and
>> attending dual language schools, of any consequence? Hernandez never
>> asked to be the face of a movement. He doesn't represent any one group
>> any more than Jared Lee Loughner is your typical white guy. And that's
>> exactly why it matters.
>>
>> It matters because guys like Arizona Sen. John McCain, who described
>> the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" as "a very sad day," still think
>> that orientation has an effect on whether or not a person can ably
>> serve in the military. It matters because the notion that two people
>> of the same sex can love each other and build a life together is still
>> considered in many parts of the country, including Arizona, a threat
>> to what is laughably referred to as "traditional marriage" -- as if
>> heterosexuals have really mopped up the floor with this whole
>> commitment thing. It matters because last week, when Arizona banned a
>> Tucson district's Mexican-American studies program, state's Attorney
>> General Tom Horne referred to it as "propagandizing and brainwashing."
>> It matters because just last year Arizona enacted a law that would not
>> merely allow but require immigration officials to determine the
>> immigration status of anyone "where reasonable suspicion exists" that
>> the person might be in the country illegally. And "reasonable
>> suspicion," as many civil libertarians pointed out, might just boil
>> down to having a darker shade of skin or speaking Spanish.
>>
>> That's just Hernandez's home of Arizona. And though Pima County
>> Sheriff Clarence Dupnik scathingly referred to his state as "a mecca
>> for racism and bigotry," violence, racism and bigotry aren't confined
>> to any one ZIP code -- they exist all over this great land of ours.
>> They exist just as surely as Hernandez shows that kindness and bravery
>> are alive and well in Arizona.
>>
>> It's still far too easy for a small-minded yahoo to champion
>> discrimination based on orientation and race, and it's just as easy
>> for another small-minded yahoo somewhere else to believe the red
>> states are indeed "meccas of racism and bigotry." If any good can come
>> out of something as unfathomably horrible as Saturday's mass shooting,
>> let it be that it shakes up a few preconceptions. That it shows the
>> world that a hero can be gay or straight, can speak English or Spanish
>> or both, and that stupid laws can exist in places full of good people.
>> And anyone who has any doubt of what kind of person deserves to serve
>> next to him in battle, or stand before their community and declare
>> their love, or go to school, or walk down the street without being
>> asked for paperwork needs to hear that and remember that, again and
>> again until it sinks in. Yes, the "gay Hispanic American" saved a life
>> on Saturday, and yes, it does matter.
>>
>> Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of
>> "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream."
>> Follow her on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/embeedub More: Mary
>> Elizabeth Williams
>>
>> More:
>>
>>
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/10/daneil_hernandez_gay_latino_hero/index.html >>
>>
>> --
>> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
>> Have a great day,
>> Tommy
>>
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